No Medical Marijuana

[Imran Siddiqui]

No, too busy, but I think I know what the majority and dissenting opinions say. I'm sure the majority talks about precedents and distinguishes Lopez and Morrison on the grounds that this is actually is an economic activity that affects commerce. I'm sure the dissent says that Lopez and Morrison restrict interstate commerce to only things that direct go across state lines. Since neither Lopez nor Morrison overruled or distinguished Wickard (totally different issue), either reading is fine. It's just who's got the most votes in the end.

[mrmitchell]

I don't recall the Clinton Administration saying this sort of stuff was legal. The opposite, in fact.

Yeah they did, except for inhaling

[Berzerker]

Imran, it isn't an economic activity, much less one crossing state lines. The court's rationale was that some doctors might over-prescribe pot (thats a federal matter?) or growers would sell across state lines. In other words, you cant grow pot in your backyard because someone else might violate a ban on selling pot across a state line or because a doctor didn't prescribe it correctly. You are punished for what someone else does, the very same argument for the drug war itself.

If the SCOTUS applied this to commerce, Congress could ban cars and bars because of drunk drivers. Hell, it could ban marriage if the drunk driver gets home and beats his wife.

[Zkribbler]

O'Connor, who like Rehnquist has had cancer, said she would have opposed California's medical marijuana law if she were a voter or a legislator. But she said the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use.''

This was the point I was trying to make.

If this is interstate commerce, what commerce is not interstate?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
This was the point I was trying to make.

If this is interstate commerce, what commerce is not interstate?

I suggest reading Scalia's opinion. They are all on Findlaw. It's a combination of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. The basic jist is that Congress has the power, under the Commerce Clause directly to ban interstate drug trafficking. However, intrastate growing of drugs has a habit of making that regulation basically ineffective. Therefore a law banning intrastate growing of the good is necessary and proper to protect its right to regulate this commerce.

Your question is answered, basically, by saying that just about all commerce is considered interstate, and has been since the 1930s. This is probably even more true today when the economy is so intergrated by new technology.

That precedent will not go away. It's stuck. The limits placed on the Commerce Clause in the 90s (which were the FIRST limits placed on Congress's Commerce Clause power by the Supreme Court since the 1930s) applied to obviously non-economic activities (like carrying a gun or beating a woman).

One of the reasons is that it is a long and well cited precedent. The Supreme Court will not go back and overturn something like that which would change the entire government in a flash, rendering a great deal of federal legislation in the crapper (such as the aforementioned Title VII).

[Zkribbler]

Here's the heart of Steven's majority opinion. As Imran predicted, he bases it upon the possiblity of homegrown pot being drawn into interstate commerce. [Note: Both Imran & I referred to Wickard v. Filburn as Filburn. Stevens calls it Wickard.]

Wickard thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself "commercial," in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity.

The similarities between this case and Wickard are striking. Like the farmer in Wickard, respondents are cultivating, for home consumption, a fungible commodity for which there is an established, albeit illegal, interstate market.28 Just as the Agricultural Adjustment Act was designed "to control the volume [of wheat] moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid surpluses ..." and consequently control the market price, id., at 115, a primary purpose of the CSA is to control the supply and demand of controlled substances in both lawful and unlawful drug markets. See nn. 20-21, supra. In Wickard, we had no difficulty concluding that Congress had a rational basis for believing that, when viewed in the aggregate, leaving home-consumed wheat outside the regulatory scheme would have a substantial influence on price and market conditions. Here too, Congress had a rational basis for concluding that leaving home-consumed marijuana outside federal control would similarly affect price and market conditions.

More concretely, one concern prompting inclusion of wheat grown for home consumption in the 1938 Act was that rising market prices could draw such wheat into the interstate market, resulting in lower market prices. Wickard, 317 U. S., at 128. The parallel concern making it appropriate to include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market. While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.29

Stevens goes on to distinguish this case from Lopez (Gun-Free Schools Act) and Morrison (Violence Against Women Act):

Unlike those at issue in Lopez and Morrison, the activities regulated by the CSA are quintessentially economic. "Economics" refers to "the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Note: Both Imran & I referred to Wickard v. Filburn as Filburn. Stevens calls it Wickard.

It's 'cause Filburn sounds cooler than Wickard .

Btw, I'd love for Congress to allow medical marijuana or state experimentation. I firmly believe that Stevens is right in that this pot would flood the market with effects in states without such liberal policies. It'd be the first step in full legalization, IMO (one can only wish).

[Berzerker]

The parallel concern making it appropriate to include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market. While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.29

Cutting thru the BS, the SCOTUS has upheld Congress' authority to force us to buy stuff we don't want and punish us for buying stuff we do want.

Joe Blow sells pot across a state line and the SCOTUS says Congress can punish pot users who don't sell across state lines. Hey, punish Joe, not everyone else. Dont give us this BS that punishing Joe is too hard when your solution is to punish millions of people.

[Drake Tungsten]

Scalia

[Ramo]

Just read the arguments. Stevens wrote that medical marijuana should probably be legal, but that the federal laws trump the states. O'Conner wrote that medical marijuana shouldn't be legal, but that medical marijuana isn't a sufficiently large industry to constitute interstate commerce. Interesting juxtaposition of beliefs.

[Ramo]

A few months ago, IIRC Leahy and Jeffords introduced a bill to have the feds defer to the states on medical mj. Hopefully, this decision will give the bill a little more support. Still very unlikely to pass....

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Imran, it isn't an economic activity, much less one crossing state lines. The court's rationale was that some doctors might over-prescribe pot (thats a federal matter?) or growers would sell across state lines.

And if I remember right from Business Law class that constitutes interstate commerce.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Kidicious
And if I remember right from Business Law class that constitutes interstate commerce.

Berserker's, my and Justice Thomas's point is essentially that, if growing pot for your own consumption is considered "interstate commerce" then what the heck is not interstate commerce. Doesn't this case functionally obliterate the qualifier "interstate" in the Commerce Clause, leaving Congress free to regulate all commerce.

(Berserker, me & Justice Thomas agreeing. Wow, politics makes strange bedfellows . . . especially when illegal drugs are involved.)

[Imran Siddiqui]

Doesn't this case functionally obliterate the qualifier "interstate" in the Commerce Clause, leaving Congress free to regulate all commerce.

What do you mean this case? That principle has been established since the 30s. Remember the Supreme Court never struck down Congress' regulation of something based on 'commerce' until the 90s, when it struck down handgun carrying and domestic violence, using the reasoning that they aren't commerce. The idea that intrastate commerce affects interstate commerce to a great degree isn't something the Supreme Court disagrees with.

And, of course, you, as opposed to Berzerker, knows that the Supreme Court decides what the Constitution does and does not say.

[pchang]

Ah yes, the famous rule of 5.